Monday, April 19, 2010

Keema Koraishuti ar Dim er Parota -- Keema Matar with Crepes

Saturday Mornings are a time of great trepidation for me. Here there are whole 48 hours given to me by God or the Government or whoever, to be used as I wish and that puts a lot of pressure on me. I mean if it was only "I" or even the husband and I, I wouldn't have any fears, I would have just slept and read and done nothing in those 48 hours.

But it is not that, there are important little people in the family, towards whom I feel I have a responsibility, to give them the best Saturdays & Sundays of their life every week, to make up for the time somewhat lost during the week. I think they should have what olde English books claimed to be "a jolly good time", though they might not really care for it.

With such lofty ideas in mind I go to bed late on Friday. Long after the kids have slept, I just while away browsing the TV or laptop, justifying the "me time". Naturally I am not shining bright and happy when Saturday dawns.

I get up late and then I hyperventilate. I draw up lists, in my generosity I draw one for the hub too, dividing up the chores to be finished so that we can finally have the "jolly good time" which eventually means I can take a nap. Depending on whether I am having PMS or BMW, my list includes stuff like "Take a long shower" while his says "Feed the kids". He doesn't like his list and a lot of time is spent arguing over & rewriting them.

By the time the little one is fed breakfast, entertained and we have had tea, it is 10 and nothing has been accomplished. No breakfast has been made, the older one has been fed only milk and crackers and the house looks like a scene of volcanic eruption. In between all arguments BS has switched on the TV and trying to watch something, she wouldn't be usually allowed to. I am thinking, maybe she is having a "jolly good time".

Breakfast is out of picture now, my dream to serve a nice breakfast of pancakes, bacon and omlette to rosy cheeked children and a smiling husband is up in the air like ashes from the volcano. Ok, who am I kidding, that wasn't even my dream, but anyway if you noticed me mentioning volcanic eruptions very frequently, ignore it.

Brunch might be a good idea I am thinking. I am trying to think, something that might please the kids and the adults alike and will not take up whole of my remaining Saturday, leaving time for park, grocery and everything else.

I think Dim er Parota, Egg Paratha, savory crepes if you prefer English. But that alone might not suffice to describe "jolly good time", BS might not look back at a Saturday of her childhood and say happily "Oh, my Saturdays were so good, We had brunch of Egg parathawhile people all over the world were stranded in airports with nothing but a dry bagel due to a volcano erupting in Iceland".

What if I throw in a Keema Matar ? That kicks up the happiness by several notches for sure. "Oh, my kiddie Saturdays were so good, we would have brunch of Egg paratha stuffed with Keema matar", definitely sounds like weekends of "jolly good time".

And then she might add, "On many a such Saturdays, after such yummy brunch, my Mom would take us to New York and show us how to do cartwheels, right there at Times Square. She was so cool. We had a jolly good time". Ok, now for sure I am kidding :-)

What is your Saturday Story ?

Dim er Parota or Egg Paratha is nothing but savory crepes which I had blogged about earlier. They are really delicious on their own and do not need anything else. But a stuffing just makes it better. Keema Koraishuti or Ground Meat with Peas is nothing but the very popular Keema Matar. Only my Mom would say Keema Koraishuti and it was such a regular at our home, that I thought it was as Bengali as Macher Jhol. Apparently it is not.

The recipe here is from Madhur Jaffrey's book Climbing the Mango Trees. Incidentally this is exactly how my Ma used to make it and I made it all these years, only thing is Jaffrey has a measurement which we never cared to take. I have increases the spice levels by a few notches from her original recipe and made some alterations as I will note here.

Serves about 4-5 adults. I had 2 lb of ground chicken. Ground lamb is a tastier option.I would also suggest that instead of getting the supermarket version of ground chicken get it from your local butcher, that tastes way better.

Put 1 cup of thick yogurt in a bowl and whisk until thick and creamy.

To it add1 tbsp of Roasted Corriander Powder1 tsp of Roasted Cumin Powder1/4 tsp of Turmeric Powder1 tsp of Paprika or Kashmiri Mirch5 fat cloves of garlic minced2" knob of ginger gratedsalt
Mix until well blended. Note: Instead of Kashmiri Mirch add about 2 tsp of Red chili Powder if you want hot. I add Red chili powder only towards the end after saving a non-spicy portion for my daughter.

Put about 2lb of ground chicken/lamb in a big bowl. Add the yogurt mix to it and mix thoroughly with hand or if you prefer a spatula. Set aside for 30 mins.

Heat Oil in a deep saute pan.

Temper the Oil with 4 Cardamom/Elaichi and 2 Bay Leaf/TejPatta. The recipe says to add a 2"stick of cinnamon which I don't.

Add 1/2 cup of Tomato Puree. I add 2-3 canned tomato along with 3-4 tbsp of their juice.Also add 1 tbsp of tomato ketchup. Fry till you see oil separating from the masala and the tomatoes are nicely mushed up.

Add about 1/2 cup of fresh or frozen peas and fry for 2-3 minutes. I added frozen peas and carrots.

Add the meat to above. Stir to break any lumps and cook till the meat is not raw. The ground meat will release some water and you have to keep stirring till the water has totally dried up. If you are cooking goat meat keema, there will be lot of fat and oil released from the meat, you can discard that if you wish. Ground chicken will be lean and there will be almost no fat, so add a little oil once the water has all dried up.

Next add about a cup of warm water, salt and sugar to taste and let it come to a boil.
If I am cooking goat meat keema, I do it in the pressure cooker and at this point I will close the pressure cooker lid and cook for about 4-5 minutes at full pressure.

Once the keema is cooked we will do this step. If you have not added Red Chili Powder before add about 2 tsp now. Add about 2 tsp of Biryani Masala or Garam Masala, adjust for seasonings and cook the meat for about 5 more minutes drying off excess water. That indicates the dish is now done.

Garnish with fresh chopped corriander and little lime juice. You can serve this the traditional way with Roti or Rice. Instead stuff the Dim er Parota or Egg Paratha we will make next, with this. Also use this stuffing for sandwiches.

Egg Paratha/Dim er Parota

Makes about 15 crepes

Mix together1&1/2 cups of All Purpose Flour/Maida,2/3 eggs3 cups of 1%Milk
to make a batter. You might need to add 1 cup of water gradually to get the right consistency batter.
Stir till smooth. The thickness of the batter should be same as that needed for a pancake or say to make utthapam.

Add finely chopped onions and chillies, and salt to this batter and mix well.

Grease your frying pan with Olive Oil.

Pour a scoop of this batter in the frying pan and spread it out (same as for cooking pancake)

Cook until golden in color and then flip and cook till golden on the other side too.

You can go ahead and eat it at this point, it's yummy. Else stuff with the yummy keema matar.

34 comments:

Mmm- the savory stuffed crepe is a jolly good enough thing as far as I am concerned!

My Saturdays are all about jostling crowds in 3-4 different grocery stores (since I like buying particular things in particular stores) and wishing for the 100th time that I did my shopping on Sunday morning when the rest of Missouri is at church.

Ha ha you mad eme laugh by your generosity to your hubby by making a list for him.I think i shuold come over to your place on saturdays.Here we try to sleep in as that is one morning we don't have to get up early for sending S to school.Morning is a chill time as brakfast and then s has to learn for school and we just hand around in the house or hubby and I go to the local market or for shopiing for grocerry together. Or better i send him alone :-)

Sandeepa - While reading this post I felt like someone was narrating my Friday nights and Saturday mornings. I so much liked that part where you said - 10am in the morning, have had only a cup of team and the little one's breskfast is done. 48 hours, a long list of chores and a heartfelt wish to give a jolly good time to your kids - This is all of our's saturday story.

Except that you have the patience to make egg parantha and keema matar even after that. Hats off to you.

My Saturday mornings are usually spent with the husband at my local Farmer's Market(I find it relaxing, he of course does not. ). I buy most of the grocery of the week here. Ofcourse, since I don't always withdraw cash in time to go, we need to visit ANOTHER grocery store and do part of our shopping there in order to get some cash back..:)

Maybe my new Saturday routine will be to read your psosts - - this was really funny. Thanks for opening up your heart and the doors of your home at the same time. I got a good chuckle out of your writing. I'm almost afraid to ask, what on earth is a BMW if not the car?

weekends its difficult for me to have some me time as my son is at home so my weekends are spent running after him,but the other five days i have lotz of me time so i guess its oky,.:-)i gonna try this ,combo looks yum,.

Wife moves on to parlour. I head home. Nap. Another coffee. Blog. Get antsy around 3.30 and close to PMSing with hunger by the time she returns. Lunch at 4, 4.30. At home if maid came or back to Candies.

Sandeepa,I keep smiling reading it, because this is the same story here in my house..no early mornings on saturday and most of the time breakfast/brunch is way past 11am...usually we like to go out on saturdays and roam around here n there ..I think this can be excellent dinner idea also.That plate full of delicious food,is making me hungry..hugs and smikles

Keema curry is my favoite from childhood (supposed to be my fever time diet along with rasam and rice). But am sure this makes a jolly good time. Usually I make a todo list too and specifically add some snacks for th kids from the blogs. 90% I meet the target. You know I made up my mind to make snacks for the whole week as "my-jolly-good-time". So I strike two mangoes in one stone ;) And not to froget I had my irst mango of this season yesterday! An ripe yellow fragrant alphonso...just to make u green with jealousy :)

Ahhh I have pushed most of my grocery store hopping to weekdays, just to keep the weekends free and even then it is far from so.And we too have to do the several store thingy, it gets maddening some times.

HC

Your peaceful Saturday is making me so jealous. Maybe when the kids are old enough, it will be like yours :)

Shreya's MomMy littlest one is quiet a mite, eating out with her requires a lot of patience. So it is more peaceful to eat at home instead, else you think I would have made all that ;-)Also honestly the hubby helps a lot. He actually made most of the crepes.So I did not do anything great you see :-)

Pree

Anda Paratha sound much better

Indo

After that Everybody Loves Raymond Episode where Debra ha such issues, D came up with the term BMW and whenever I am having my mood swings that is what he says "PMS or BMW". I don't know where he got it from(was it in the episode?).

That really sounds relaxing. But alas such days do not happen in my schedule these days, I try to finish part of the grocer hopping, on the way back from work on weekdays.But with summer, things will change for better

Haha certainly not like this crepe with keema mutter! Gosh I am coming to East coast for this brunch Sandeepa for every saturdays.Usually we have only tea and go directly with leftover of friday night for lunch, so did u see how is the "jolly time here" but of course my kid has a plan to eat out!

My saturday story is ditto yours. only when I go to shower I lock the bedroom door too so no one can even ask for help and I refuse to hear them when there are "emergencies" .. only a few minutes of bliss, well sometimes only on the days when we have no where to go, no activities to take them to.

But this is a "jolly good" brunch, and i could forget everything if I could eat something as delicious (only I would be too lazy to make it for myself).

I loved this post. Not just because of the recipe, but the warmth of a beautiful family life that emerges from the whole narrative.Reminds me of my own childhood and weekends with my mother trying to cook luchi, alur dom for late Saturday breakfasts, and me fighting with my dad for the sports page of Anondobajar....

Love love love the fact that you have used chicken mince - I can try it tomorrow ;)

Your description of our unreasonable efforts to make sure our kids have some kind of magical weekend they will treasure forever hits the nail on the head. Between doing that and trying to get "family time" in and shopping for groceries plus completing a never endinglist of tasks such as cheque deposits and insurance renewals means the weekend is Chaoc city. So I think back, what did I do with my parents - well guess what i remember visits to the bank followed by a visit to the dadar wholesale veggies and flower market alternated with a visit to Gandhimarket where we would ooh and aah over sarees and assorted trinkets. There were movies on some saturdays and dinners on special occasions. We liked that - so what makes us think our kids wont like Saturdays just the way they turn out?!

So, once a month we have no lists - NONE, no agenda and we laze around and read the papers and some books maybe, play dough? or carrom or just listen to music. I also use the time to go have a pedicure - I have decided that a monthly pedicure will not deprive my daughter of quality time and she wont become a bank robber because of that ;) My feet on the other hand love me for doing this :)

This post had me laughing... I do the same thing! I think up all the things I can do on my days off, catching up, making some big breakfast, all the leisure time... and it never works out the way I hoped or planned! And yeah, my daughter ends up popping some popcorn or eating cereal before I either get around to even starting some fancy breakfast, or it takes so long she is just too hungry to wait :P

hi made the keema koraishuti and the dem er parota - the keema koraishuti was nice. however my used to "kolkata anadi cabin moglai parota" tongue found the crepe to be a little flat on taste and not very crispy. but the partner was happy with what i churned out and ate more than his fair share. i found your recipes very easy to follow and of course your description and the way you post them are fabulous. thank you.

LinkWithin

Share This

Search This Blog

The Book

About Me

Predominantly a Bong, who loves being a Mom and loves to cook among other things for the li'l one and the big ones.She loves to write too and you will find her food spiced up with stories. Mainly a collection of Bengali Recipes with other kinds thrown in, in good measure. A Snapshot of Bengali Cuisine